The farmer told me how thieves would jump over his fences almost daily to enter the farm and steal large bags full of cabbage, beetrootor whatever crop was ripening on the land.

On the rare occasion that the police responded quickly enough to nab the thieves, the perpetrators would be released with little more than a slap on the wrists, because, as one officer once asked the farmer, what were they supposed to do with someone who stole a bag of cabbage because he was hungry?

But the problem is, of course, far worse than that. It is not simply one person stealing one bag of vegetables; it is many people stealing many bags of vegetables, night after night.

In the end, the farmers suffer losses running into hundreds of thousands of rands, and our police seem incapable of curbing the threat.

The impact of stock theft on the red meat industry is well reported and conservatively estimated to cost farmers R900 million per year.

However, we still have no idea of the scope of a new type of crime that seems to be on the rise: the organised theft of large quantities of crops.

During this past year, many instances have been reported of what appear to be well-organised crime syndicates stealing lorry loads of grain or feed. High-value tree crops such as avocado and macadamia nuts are also stolen in large quantities.

Minister of Police Fikile Mbalula presented the annual South African crime statistics in Parliament recently, announcing that violent crimes in South Africa had increased, with murder increasing by 1,8%.

Mbalula did not release new farm murder statistics, but judging by independently kept records, as reported by TAU SA, for the year up to 22 October, farm attacks increased from 307 to 340 and farm murders were up from 55 to 64.